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Above: Rhode Island School of Design Industrial Design MA 2022 1-2 Dara Benno/ 3 Aaliya Jamal Zaidi/ 4 Jenny Jingxuan Chen/ 5 Ann Dinh/ 6 Charlie Herbozo Vidal Fourteen Industrial Design MA graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design are currently presenting their final projects at the RISD Grad Show 2022. This year’s crop of budding designers have created concepts that help prepare consumers for natural disasters, promote better communication with different generations of migrants and cope with social anxiety. Dara Benno’s project is a collection of lifestyle objects titled ICOE (In Case of Emergency) which double-up as items to be used during a sudden natural disaster. One piece in the collection is a shower curtain that converts into a garment to be worn during a flood. Panels can be converted into flotation bands and removed to be given to others, which is a shift away from the solitary survivalist mindset.  A Fleeting Landscape, Vrinda MathurVrinda Mathur's A Fleeting Landscape invites the city dweller to experience a mixed media microcosm of the marshes and discover what has been obscured through the encroachment of urban development. Aaliya Jamal Zaidi has created a series of Vulva Mirrors to help people with vulvas learn more about their own bodies and combat the shame around such bodies created by the male-gaze and Western media. One such mirror is embedded within a velvet beanbag while another can be softly strapped across the user’s legs. Jenny Jingxuan Chen’s Mood Buddy is a visual indicator to help people with social anxiety communicate their mood. The Mood Buddy is a blank figure whose expression can be changed with a dry-erasable pen. It comes with a set of speech bubbles with different messages printed on them, as well as a blank one, to help people ask for help or to indicate they need some alone time. In addition, the set comes with a journal to act as a safe space for users to document their feelings. Ann Dinh’s WordForms project is a type alphabet created to help bridge the culture and language gaps between different generations of Asian migrants living in the USA. The alphabet is printed on stamp blocks which people can then use to stamp, arrange and mark in order to communicate better. Dinh created several pieces using these stamps in multiple Chinatown locations in the US which could be read and interpreted as having different meanings depending on the lighting. ‘It is the use of multiple wordforms to make a whole storyline or to make a phrase. Or, in some cases, you only need a word to express something. These wordforms in combination and in various scales, can create a physical presence,’ writes Dinh. Charlie Herbozo Vidal’s Sobremesa project investigates how the spaces where we eat can be used as tools to research user experiences in relation to topics around politics, race, colonialism and society. Vidal writes: ‘ In creating discomfort at the table, can users feel inclined to begin discussing elements or topics that would be unacceptable at a traditional table? Where do conversations begin? How can the act of eating together be an influencing factor for social structures outside of the mealspace?’ Visit the RISD Grad Show 2022 website to see all the projects from this year’s Industrial Design MA graduates. 
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Above: Rhode Island School of Design Industrial Design MA 2022 1-2 Dara Benno/ 3 Aaliya Jamal Zaidi/ 4 Jenny Jingxuan Chen/ 5 Ann Dinh/ 6 Charlie Herbozo Vidal
Fourteen Industrial Design MA graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design are currently presenting their final projects at the RISD Grad Show 2022. This year’s crop of budding designers have created concepts that help prepare consumers for natural disasters, promote better communication with different generations of migrants and cope with social anxiety.
Dara Benno’s project is a collection of lifestyle objects titled ICOE (In Case of Emergency) which double-up as items to be used during a sudden natural disaster. One piece in the collection is a shower curtain that converts into a garment to be worn during a flood. Panels can be converted into flotation bands and removed to be given to others, which is a shift away from the solitary survivalist mindset.
A Fleeting Landscape, Vrinda MathurVrinda Mathur's A Fleeting Landscape invites the city dweller to experience a mixed media microcosm of the marshes and discover what has been obscured through the encroachment of urban development.
Aaliya Jamal Zaidi has created a series of Vulva Mirrors to help people with vulvas learn more about their own bodies and combat the shame around such bodies created by the male-gaze and Western media. One such mirror is embedded within a velvet beanbag while another can be softly strapped across the user’s legs.
Jenny Jingxuan Chen’s Mood Buddy is a visual indicator to help people with social anxiety communicate their mood. The Mood Buddy is a blank figure whose expression can be changed with a dry-erasable pen. It comes with a set of speech bubbles with different messages printed on them, as well as a blank one, to help people ask for help or to indicate they need some alone time. In addition, the set comes with a journal to act as a safe space for users to document their feelings.
Ann Dinh’s WordForms project is a type alphabet created to help bridge the culture and language gaps between different generations of Asian migrants living in the USA. The alphabet is printed on stamp blocks which people can then use to stamp, arrange and mark in order to communicate better. Dinh created several pieces using these stamps in multiple Chinatown locations in the US which could be read and interpreted as having different meanings depending on the lighting. ‘It is the use of multiple wordforms to make a whole storyline or to make a phrase. Or, in some cases, you only need a word to express something. These wordforms in combination and in various scales, can create a physical presence,’ writes Dinh.
Charlie Herbozo Vidal’s Sobremesa project investigates how the spaces where we eat can be used as tools to research user experiences in relation to topics around politics, race, colonialism and society. Vidal writes: ‘ In creating discomfort at the table, can users feel inclined to begin discussing elements or topics that would be unacceptable at a traditional table? Where do conversations begin? How can the act of eating together be an influencing factor for social structures outside of the mealspace?’
Visit the RISD Grad Show 2022 website to see all the projects from this year’s Industrial Design MA graduates.